As I Have Your Heart, So You Have Mine
by Sable Supernova
Summary: Barty Crouch Jr is worried because Regulus didn't come home last night, and as he worries, memories of their time together come back to him. "Hey, love isn't easy to find you know, especially when the sea's small, and half the fishes are your relatives."


A/N: Written for **The Battlefield Wars**. Prompts were _Regulus Black_, _Barty Crouch Jr_, _One of the characters has his/her heart broken by the other character,_ and the additional (optional) prompts of _Snowing_, _Wizarding Camera_, _"Why would I be jealous - though, I know you're partial to men in leather jackets." - Hook, Once Upon a Time_ and _I Carry Your Heart With Me by e.e. cummings._

Also submitted to **The Harry Potter Day Competition**

**Warning for Character Death.**

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I'll admit it, I'm pacing our flat like a madman. When you didn't come home last night, the worry began to eat a knot in my stomach. Now, it's a perfect June morning, and the agitation is growing. You never stayed out. We're only eighteen, but the war has thrown us into the real world much faster than either of us expected. We chose South London, Lambeth, close to Vauxhall Park, because you love the city, and I can't say no to you. Then you didn't come home, and now I'm beginning to worry… I'm beginning to worry I'll be living here alone.

I can still remember how it all began. It was snowing, I'd just turned sixteen, and I was invincible. It was a cold December; we'd ditched lessons to take in the cold winter's air and it felt like we were the only two people left in the world. The snow had turned everything white, blanketing reality in it's glistening coldness, and anything seemed possible.

"Lucius and Narcissa got engaged," you told me, with a smile. I was surprised a smile like that didn't melt the snow around us and turn the skies to a perfect summer's day.

"Good for them," I commented. I didn't tell you I didn't care about them. I only cared for you, but you didn't know that yet.

"Hey, love isn't easy to find you know, especially when the sea's small, and half the fishes are your relatives," you commented, reprimanding me for my nonchalance.

"You're right," I told you with a smile. We were walking around the edges of the Forbidden Forest, and you suddenly took a turn towards it. Thinking back, the Forbidden Forest was the perfect location for what happened next, wasn't it?

"Hey, Barty, do you think you'll ever be in love?" you asked me, and I remember not being certain what you were really asking me.

"I'm certain of it," _because I love you, Regulus,_ was the end of that sentence. What I didn't say.

"What makes you sure?" you'd asked me. "You've never had a girlfriend!"

"No," I looked away. Did I want to tell you now? I looked away, and saw the way the weather had hidden the paths, the traces of everything that had gone before it. I knew the snow would be gone soon, which made me think that if I said something you didn't want to hear, the weather could wash it away, too, if we let it. We left the snow behind as we stepped under the shelter of the trees and I turned back to you. "I don't want a girlfriend, either."

"Then what do you want?" you asked, and my breath fell short and heavy.

"There is someone, but it's a 'he'," I admitted. You stopped walking and looked at me, so I stopped, too, and looked back.

"Sorry, I didn't know," you said, your face unreadable.

"It's okay." You asked me who it was, and I told you I couldn't say.

"Is he ever going to be more than just 'someone'?" you asked.

"I don't know. He's never had a relationship, I don't think, so I don't know if he would like me that way," I told you, and I remember wondering if you knew I was talking about you.

"Well, then, I think you need to ask him and find out," you said, and there was a finality in your voice that I couldn't argue with.

"Okay," I said, and there was a pause, pregnant with unsaid words.

"Regulus, do you-"

"Yes." You didn't even let me finish my sentence, and I looked at you like I'd never seen you before. You smiled, letting a hint of emotion creep through your facade as you stepped forward and kissed me. It was gentle and sweet. Your cold lips held a warmth I couldn't have imagined while the softness held a promise you couldn't speak. And so we started as we continue, in dark places and in secret. We told a few people about us, but we mostly keep it to ourselves, don't we? The world doesn't need to know. We love each other, and that's enough.

Now, snow will always make me think of you.

Where are you? I sit down, on our couch, but I don't feel like resting as I put my head in my hands. What will I do without you? I can still remember the most beautiful thing you ever said to me, and it haunts me.

It was February, and we were in the Quidditch changing rooms after our match against Hufflepuff. We were the last two there, and we didn't feel like rushing to catch up with the others. As I fastened my School trousers, I felt your arms snake around my waist as your cheek pressed against my shoulder. I turned around to kiss you.

"You played well," you told me, "I was proud."

"Yes, but you caught the Snitch," I smiled back. I was proud of you, too.

You looked straight at me then. The seriousness in your face made my stomach leap in apprehension.

"I think I love you," you said, and I let out a long breath I didn't know I was holding.

"I thought it was something serious," I joked.

"I am serious. You have my heart, Bart." You were the only one that called me that. I kissed you again, hard and desperate.

"You have my heart, too," I told you.

So you have to come back, Reg, because you have my heart, you see. I can't function without it. Without you.

I stand again, and pace over to the window, looking out over the edge of the city. You can see the start of the street that holds the seedy little bar we go to. Do you remember the first time we went? Long before we lived here, over Easter of your Sixth Year, my Fifth. We weren't old enough to drink, but that didn't stop us.

You walked in first, like you owned the place, and I followed at your tail. We pulled out the driver's licenses you'd transfigured into existence that told the barman we were old enough to drink. You'd turned seventeen a couple of weeks ago and were still relishing in your ability to perform magic outside of School.

I watched you as your eyes followed a tall man in a leather jacket pass us by, and smiled a little.

"Partial to a man in a leather jacket?" I asked you.

"Why, are you jealous?" you asked, a smile playing on your lips.

"No." I kissed you. "I might have to buy myself one, though."

You pulled the camera out of your pocket soon after that, a wizarding camera that you'd charmed to look muggle. We took so many pictures that night; of me, of you, of us.

"Why did you bring a camera?" I asked you as we were walking the streets of London later that night.

"Because I thought we needed some pictures," you smiled as we turned onto Westminster Bridge. I didn't realise we'd walked that far, it felt like five minutes had passed when it must have been more like half an hour.

"Is that the only reason?" I asked. We walked in silence for a while until you turned to face me, right in the middle of the Bridge. Your grey eyes were glistening under the streetlights.

"No," you admitted. I waited. "Lord Voldemort wants me, Barty. I won't be coming back to Hogwarts." Your words came like a dagger to my heart, but I didn't let you see that.

"Then you must do your duty," I told you, my voice quiet.

You pulled the camera out of your pocket and held it out to me. "This is for you," you said, and I took it wordlessly.

"I'll write, I promise. Summer will be here soon, too," you told me.

"Just… you're too young to die, alright," I told you as tears came to my eyes.

"I know," you smiled as you wrapped your arms around me. I did the same, and I never wanted to let go.

I stand to get those photographs. They're in a box under our bed, the same box they've always been in. I scatter them over the bed, and reach out to you in my thoughts. Come home.

I never did buy that leather jacket, did I? I'll buy one tomorrow, Reg, just for you. Although it became a running joke, didn't it? That summer we were walking through the park when I saw your eyes trail after another man wearing one, and I called you up on it again. You asked me again if I was jealous. I always meant it when I said that I wasn't. You always came home to me, and that was enough.

Suddenly, a knock at the door breaks my reverie. I rush to answer it. Did you forget your keys? Is it someone else, come to tell me you need me?

My heart sinks when I see Narcissa standing there, your favourite cousin. Worry and pity cloud her face and I find myself unable to breathe.

"What's wrong?" I ask her, fearing the worst, knowing she knows something I don't. I don't want to know. I need to know.

"It's Reg," tears settle in her blue eyes as she looks at me, her usually haughty exterior broken down. "He's dead."

Her words hit me with such finality that I try to speak, but instead of words, a strangled cry escapes my lips.

You can't be dead, Reg, I still have your heart, I think as I sink to my knees in the doorway. Narcissa bustles in and shuts the door. I suppose she thinks the neighbours shouldn't see my agony. Let them see.

You had my heart when you died, Reg. That must mean it's broken. Shattered into a thousand pieces alongside you. I don't ask how, or why. I don't want to know. The knowledge alone is more than I can bear.

Narcissa's arm lies across my shoulders and I'm barely aware of it. I'm not aware of anything but the sharp pain wrenching its way through my chest like a cold steel blade.

But if I still have your heart, Reg, then I'll carry it with me. It will be wherever I go, and in everything I do. I carry your heart, Reg, I carry it in my heart.


End file.
